Chapter-1 JAB WE MET

This is the first chapter of the my love story that someday I wished to publish as a novel (yeah... I was planning to write one). I had written one more chapter of this which I'll publish as a new post, but now when I think, I won't be able to write it anymore as it evokes too much pain in me. But still, I wanted to publish these two in my blog. These were published first in my facebook notes. And I know now that I won't be able to write anymore of this, as the story has a tragic ending. I so much wished that she had shown a little bit of courage and fought for me. Well... I don't know...

Chapter-1. JAB WE MET

"Ponnoooooooooooooooooooooooo !" - A sing-song female voice sang out from the front seats of the bus. Ignoring the fact that my own name, when said, was followed by a "come again" or "Could you spell it, please" or something similarly stupid, I had immediately scratched it in my mind - what a strange name ! "Ponnu" ??????? Must be a pet name, for sure.

In my part of the world, the word ‘Ponnu’ (it refers to a very pure form of gold)  is used to call cute babies or kids only (I stress the phrase again - "babies or kids only") when they are still young, which would eventually be replaced by their original names. I even smiled to myself thinking of the days she grows old... Her skin wrinkled, her teeth gone, her back stooped... What would be the effect when her grand-children calls her by her name that sounded like a pet name? "Ponnu grandma !" I was smiling to myself... Cute for a girl of 19, but later? I was amused. But somehow, I still remember that this was the first name I heard of any of those girls. And I wonder why it stuck somewhere in the corners of the highly complex folds of my brain.

We boys were seated in the backseats of the bus, stealing a look or two occasionally at the bubbly girls in front, who pretended not to even notice that boys, not exactly Shahrukh Khan materials, but boys still, were even there.

"Humph ! proud, head-weighted, english-speaking, clever-pretending creatures !" someone from our gang exclaimed, and I noticed that it was one of the girls from our college- a Fine Arts college where all the students wear simpler clothes (jeans was the most common and luxurious cloth worn, and the girls weren’t even on the edge of wearing jeans, but they stuck to churidars or salwar-kameez or whatever), listened to malayalam songs, danced to the beats of the ‘shingaari melam’ and so on... In short, our college was one with all the simplicities and complexities of a typical Keralite government college in contrary to the ultra-modern, jeans-t shirt-wearing, english-speaking, ‘bollywoodish’ girls from the most famous women’s college in Cochin (or should I say notorious?). I’ll explain this college in simple words to you. Imagine tons of cheese spreading the fragrance to miles, locked up in the larder with millions of hungry mice around... That was their college, the women’s college even for stepping into which boys were ready to give their lives for. So now you know how deep the contrast goes... We had our own image of these girls when we knew that half a dozen of them were to travel with us and work together as a team for the next six days. We boys had already sworn to each other that we won’t even speak to these proud girls so as not to embarrass ourselves, lest they think that they shouldn’t even talk to middle-class guys like us.

We all were on our way to the South-Zone National Inter-University youth festival that was to happen on the 27th of December 2006, I remember. The mega event was happening at the Madurai Kamaraj University, Tamilnadu and we were on the way there, about fifteen of us from our college including girls, half-a-dozen from the famous women’s college, and a few from three or four other colleges. That year, the inter-college youth fests were not conducted within our university but instead a screening was held by the Department of Student Services which we came to notice by sheer luck, enlisted our names, and without much effort, got selected (I’m resisting the urge to put a smiley sign here, but I will definitely say this that these were some of the best days of my entire life). We were a bunch of boys who readily jumped into anything- Study tours, NSS camps, Forest camps without any hesitations. And this was the chance of a lifetime... A national level competition, Travel expense, accommodation and food provided by the hosting University and our Mahatma Gandhi university, Kottayam. So here we were, on our way to six days of enjoyment, booze, roaming around new places and the company of girls. As for me, any chance to get out of home was not missed and during the four years of my college life, I can clearly say that 50% of those days I have spent out of my home- either in the college itself or in the house of some friend (Linu was my usual victim), or at some place where I did my freelance jobs, or at some rented shared houses of my friends. I was a leaf in the wind at that time, with no chains to hold me back or refusing whatever hindrance in my path of freedom. Luckily one or two months before the Youth Festival, I had cut my one-and-a-half feet long hair (no exaggerations) or believe me, I wouldn’t have been writing this, in the first place. I was selected for the items Poster designing, Collage making, and Installation which was a group item consisting of four members- Me, Linu, Sandeep and Nijith. Linu had clay modelling, Sandeep was participating in Cartooning and Nijith in painting also. Apart from the ‘bollywood’ girls, there was a group of girls from our college who were going to participate in the much anticipated group folk dance, and about five other students from other colleges under our university. Just to give you a clear picture of the scenario, I would also add that Inter-college Youth festivals under our university in not very short of battle-fields when it comes to the Women’s college who take it too seriously, as they are used to fighting with nails and bones for the over-all trophy with another famous college. Our college was very much new to the competition as we had only participated once in the inter-college youth festival after the affiliation to our university in 1998.

In Malayalam, there is a saying-that I dare not quote here not wishing to share the obscenities- about how two women would not be able to get on well together, but my point here is that the girls in our team had already started pointing out how the other girls wore jeans (how bad of them !!!????), spoke in English and so on and so forth. Tell you what, guys- if a girl start feeling jealous of other girls, there is nothing like it, and if you are lucky, you are in for a treat. You would ask if we were; I honestly say I’m not sure because the girls who don’t even talk to us properly inside our college were all getting sugary-sugary, but that was someway or the other a little bit disturbing. There was a fat, grizzly-looking teacher from their college with them and with us, nobody to help, as usual and zero funds. Here these girls were, dancing to the much hated Bollywood songs, and we male chauvinists were reclining on our back seats, arms folded and a sarcastic smirk on our faces.

"Poor kids", we said to each other, "They are showing off a little too much. Let’s see how long this dance of theirs lasts..."

We all were very much confident of our dancing skills and stamina - we could dance for long hours without getting tired for a bit. Of course, some of us would dance for the whole day, provided the booze kept flowing ! And much to our relief, after an hour, the bollywood numbers ceased to play and there they were, sitting on their seats, but still chattering loudly. And no one can challenge them at that, and I know that you will agree to that too. Now it was our turn and the channel changed from MTV to Asianet. Malayalam songs kept flowing from the rear end till the bus stopped for dinner at a college on the way as planned.

This was how we all met together... How our big gang came together... A clash of two cultures that bomberded against each other initially but made way for some great friendship... Even though it didn’t last very long, it was great while it lasted and still each of us cherish each moment of those journeys in our hearts dearly.

But what I didn’t know at that very day was that Ponnu was not a pet name, but the real name of that very sweet, in fact the sweetest person I have ever come across in my life. Another thing I didn’t have a clue at that time was that those five letters would someday make me sit huddled in front of my laptop in my room with a confused heart and a brain that is heated up with thoughts and type down these words. I didn’t have a clue that those days were about to change my entire life for good... I know now why the name crept into the crevices of my mind even without my consent or knowledge...